The dozen or so cultivators present harbored their own thoughts, every eye fixed on what lay beyond the gate.
Meanwhile, the Divine Infants of the Sky-Overturning Plan Alliance felt tempestuous waves surge in their hearts.
After all, when so many Divine Infants had failed to open it, the gate had actually been breached.
"Why are we all just standing here? Let's go in together!" one Divine Infant cultivator proposed.
The other Divine Infants looked wary.
Ruins of this sort were fraught with danger; even Divine Infant cultivators might perish. None dared to make a rash move.
"Come on, let's go take a look inside."
Qi Yuan had no such worries. His left eyebrow was twitching frantically—a sure sign that great fortune awaited within.
He wondered if the treasures and wealth inside would be enough to buy Arch Star.
The fat cultivator took one look and followed without hesitation.
Xie Tang gritted her teeth and hurried in as well.
Seeing this, the other cultivators filed inside one after another.
The moment they stepped through the gate, the world underwent a dramatic transformation.
What had been a cramped cave suddenly opened up into a vast, boundless expanse.
Starlight poured down like gentle rain upon everyone.
"A starry sky?"
"It's actually a starry sky in here!"
All the cultivators looked up in astonishment.
Overhead was a boundless sea of stars, stretching endlessly beyond view, impossible to take in with a single glance.
A brilliant tapestry of constellations glittered across the firmament.
Everyone's eyes shone with wonder, feeling as though they had stepped into an entirely new world.
"So many stars... it's making me hungry." Qi Yuan's mouth watered, much like quenching one's thirst by gazing at plums.
"Could this be another world?"
"Why do these stars feel so bizarre?"
Coming from the cultivation realm, they all knew that the stars in the heavens were the reflections of gods cast across the heavens.
Each star represented a deity.
Upon arriving on Arch Star, they had noticed something odd, but because there were few stars in the sky, they hadn't paid much attention.
Yet here... the sky was brimming with stars.
"This is probably this spaceship's star chart," Qi Yuan said softly. "Pretty realistic."
The starry sky before them wasn't real; it was merely a star chart.
"A star chart?" Some Divine Infants were taken aback. They spread their divine sense, and looks of horror soon crept onto their faces. "A star chart could actually deceive our senses!"
If a mere star chart could mislead them into mistaking it for a real starry sky, wouldn't that mean they would be just as blind to any traps or mechanisms?
"Everyone, since we're in, let us part ways here!" a lone Divine Infant announced.
With that, he flew deeper into the ruins.
Seeing this, the other Divine Infants said nothing and dispersed one by one.
Once inside a ruin, treasure hunting was naturally the priority.
If they stumbled upon an Eye of the Sky, they would make a killing.
"Which way are you headed, Fellow Daoist?" the fat cultivator asked.
Xie Tang also looked toward Qi Yuan, as if seeking his opinion.
"The ruins aren't that big anyway. There's no rush; I plan to take a good look around," Qi Yuan said.
With his Yang God strength, almost everything inside the spaceship had fallen within his perception the moment he entered.
Advanced as the ship might seem, it was actually dilapidated and ruined, completely stripped of power.
Anything useful inside had long been depleted, leaving behind only scrap metal and a few Eyes of the Sky.
As for the star-destroying cannons and other superweapons Qi Yuan had imagined, there were none.
"Ruins with a big reputation, yet full of scrap metal inside," Qi Yuan remarked casually.
Xie Tang was slightly taken aback. "Have you been here before, Fellow Daoist?"
"Never. But a single sweep showed me there's nothing good besides junk. If anything counts as good, maybe the spaceship itself."
"A gate so hard to open, yet only junk inside?" The fat cultivator found it strange.
"Yeah, just a few thousand Eyes of the Sky. Isn't that junk?" Qi Yuan said nonchalantly.
To the people of this ship, the Eyes of the Sky were probably just standard-issue weaponry, akin to rifles in a modern military.
As for stronger weapons... there were none.
"A few thousand Eyes of the Sky?" The fat cultivator swallowed hard.
Xie Tang's breathing quickened, a hint of doubt lingering over whether Qi Yuan was telling the truth.
Even so, she didn't leave.
When the gate was being opened earlier, she had sensed a dangerous aura directed at her.
"The most valuable thing here is probably this wall," Qi Yuan said, walking toward a corner.
In the corner stood a wall made of an unknown material, resembling highly polished marble.
Many murals were etched across the stone surface.
The others turned curious gazes toward the carvings.
The first mural was simple: inside a villa full of sci-fi flair, a young man in flowing white robes gazed up at the starry sky, his eyes brimming with longing and love.
"Based on my experience of scoring full marks on reading comprehension, this first mural portrays the protagonist's yearning for a woman on the far side of the stars. His clenched fist represents his determination. That's right—he's about to tell his mother that he sets sail tonight to search for his lover."
Back on Blue Star, Qi Yuan had excelled at Chinese reading comprehension. These murals were far too simple for him.
He turned to the second mural.
In it, a man and a woman gazed into each other's eyes amid the cosmos, set against an infinite expanse of stars.
"Mm, they met. Lovers unite at last."
The third mural depicted a mesmerizing night, showing only the woman's silhouette beneath the moonlight.
"Baby is misunderstood, baby is hurting, baby won't say a word, baby goes home," Qi Yuan interpreted once more. "Connecting it with the earlier murals, the guy's parents secretly met the girl, handed her a bank card, and told her to leave. Judging by the look of it, his mother still has plenty of charm left too."
Hearing this, Ning Tao giggled softly. "This plot sounds way too familiar. Are there car crashes and cancer next?"
"Obviously... there are! Roll the clip!"
Qi Yuan looked at the fourth mural.
"Carrying her grievances, the woman returned to her home planet. Oh, looks like this planet is Arch Star. Then one day, a formidable enemy descended. To protect her homeland, she bled across the stars and died in battle."
Ning Tao's expression softened slightly. "Husband, even though you make it sound ridiculous, it's actually quite touching."
Setting aside Qi Yuan's storytelling style, the core of the tale was genuinely moving.
After all, dying in battle to defend a realm was truly heroic and poignant.
Everyone turned to the fifth mural.
"The theme of this mural is the search. The man learned that his lover was missing. Piloting a spaceship through the cosmos, he wandered the boundless starry reaches for tens of thousands of years searching for her. But the cosmos was far too vast; finding his love was harder than fishing a needle from the sea. Yet as we all know, they had to brush past each other several times—right in front of each other, yet unable to see it. In the end, love moved the heavens and earth, and the man finally found her."
Ning Tao didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "A romantic melodrama, turned into a comedy by you."
She looked at the sixth mural.
In it, the man found the woman, only to find the female lead on the verge of death.
"Surrounded by enemy armies, the heroine hovered on the brink of death. At the critical moment, the hero stepped up and finally gathered her into his embrace. Alas, her life force was severed. She cast one last look at him, shed a single tear, and died as dead could be. The joy of reunion instantly turned into sorrow. The hero unlocked his hidden power and routed the enemy army on the spot."
Seeing this, Xie Tang felt a pang of melancholy. "A pitiable match."
The fat cultivator was also moved to sighs. "There are always regrets in this world that can never be smoothed over. I still remember before I embarked on cultivation, I confessed to my childhood sweetheart next door. She said I was too fat, but if I could drop from one hundred and eighty jin to one hundred and fifty jin in a month, she would be with me. A month passed, and I weighed one hundred and fifty-one jin. In the end, we weren't fated to be, leaving me with a lifelong regret."
Qi Yuan nodded. "Your example is indeed quite similar; the core is the same. People always have regrets. Seeing each other one last time before dying—doesn't that tug at the audience's heartstrings even more?"
How did the saying go? Failure that fell just one step short of success was the most regretful of all.
Everyone turned to the final mural.
"The theme of the last mural is the Watcher. The man stayed in this world, watching with his own eyes as his lover's world slowly fractured and fell into desolation. He could not bear to see such a fate unfold. So he remained alone in this world, guarding her world like a watcher. He wanted to trace every mark she left behind; he wanted to walk every footstep she had ever taken. He wanted to save this world from destruction, he wanted to bring her back to life, and he wanted to restart this world!"
Qi Yuan spoke with soaring passion, like giving a grand speech.
Socially anxious as he was, he had only ever delivered speeches via text on the Divine Flower Society forum; he had never done so in reality.
Now, with so few people around, he seized the chance.
Qi Yuan felt his speech was quite effective—he had even moved himself.
If he were just a bit more sentimental, he might have dropped a few little pearls of tears.
Even so, he felt a bit emo, deeply touched by his own words.
He decided that tonight, he wouldn't add chili flakes to his braised pork rice.
"Truly an... epic and moving story," Xie Tang said, giving Qi Yuan an odd look.
If Qi Yuan hadn't been narrating, they would have felt much deeper emotions looking at these murals themselves.
Qi Yuan's presence had turned the whole thing bizarre.
Ning Tao also rolled her eyes at Qi Yuan. "Husband, you took a tragic romance melodrama and turned it into a farce."
"Who said this was a tragic romance? What if it's a political intrigue drama, or a crime thriller?" Qi Yuan retorted. "Don't put it in a box!"
"I understand. My husband has high artistic sensibilities—just like those short videos that review horror movies using comedy," Ning Tao said.
Qi Yuan thoroughly approved.
Meanwhile, something crossed Xie Tang's mind. Her expression grew complicated, deep worry clouding her eyes. "If these murals are true, doesn't that mean... this world is facing destruction?"
Although the murals had no text and explained no power scaling, it was obvious that the hero and heroine were at least at the Yin God level, if not higher.
After all, traveling through the cosmos for tens of thousands of years was beyond what a Purple Mansion cultivator could achieve.
What was more, restarting the world and resurrecting the heroine in the final panel was something not even a Yin God could pull off—only a Yang God could.
"Right now, that male lead is probably fighting off formidable enemies in some unknown corner while preparing to restart the world and resurrect the heroine. We aren't native cultivators of Arch Star. If the world gets restarted, won't we be restarted into... fertilized eggs?" The fat cultivator looked worried. He was quite trendy, knowing how to use Arch Star's modern terms.
"This world has already been restarted once? Wait..." Xie Tang suddenly realized something.
Could it be that before Senior Sister disappeared, she had come to this world and ended up restarted into... a fertilized egg?
If so, that would be rather hard to accept.
"Touching as their love story is—moving heaven and earth—it hasn't moved me. So I think we should leave this realm as soon as possible. This place is far too dangerous for Divine Infant cultivators like us," the fat cultivator said anxiously.
Setting aside the terrifying enemies the leads faced, just looking at the male lead, he clearly seemed unhinged.
The "for you, I'll destroy the Three Realms" type.
As the saying went: *When immortals fall in love, the Three Realms know no peace.* There was indeed some truth to that.
Qi Yuan remained calm. "What's there to fear? It's just a game's backstory. Besides, Fellow Daoist, have you forgotten? Even if you die, I will remember you and resurrect you within my Purple Mansion."
The fat cultivator blinked, stunned. "You make a fair point."
At that moment, Qi Yuan looked at the final mural with a peculiar expression. "Based on this plot setup, has this game already been restarted many times?"
The hero restarting the world to save the heroine—this setup couldn't help but remind Qi Yuan of Dongjun.
It seemed Dongjun had restarted the world multiple times, only to fail each time, unable to resurrect his Dao companion.
Ning Tao narrowed her eyes. "Perhaps."
"So... could this world have a lot of purple qi?" Qi Yuan blinked, a spark of excitement in his eyes.
Purple qi was born at the dawn of heaven and earth.
If this realm had kept restarting and following its original trajectory over and over, wouldn't that mean there was an abundance of purple qi?
But soon, he shook his head.
If one could exploit a glitch like that to farm purple qi, wouldn't that mean powerful Yang Gods would never lack purple qi?
Purple qi wouldn't be called the foremost qi of the immortal path.
Still, there was definitely purple qi in this world.
"Alright, show's over. Time for us to loot the place," Qi Yuan said, sweeping his divine sense outward.
Instantly, endless data flooded his mind.
"Let's go. To the control room."
Qi Yuan had already located the main control room.
Hearing that, Xie Tang hurried after him.
She was actually rather anxious; after all, there really might be Eyes of the Sky here.
If the other Divine Infant cultivators obtained them while they got none, Tianxuan Sect's standing would plummet.
Moreover, Tianxuan Sect was currently facing a talent drought, and she needed to accumulate some foundation.
Soon, the four arrived outside the ruin's control room.
The other eight cultivators were already gathered there.
Their faces bore expressions of barely concealed excitement and thrill.
Clearly, everyone had reaped bountiful rewards from scouring the ruins.
In a spaceship that wasn't that large to begin with and completely unhindered, those Eyes of the Sky had already been pocketed by them.
Now, clustered outside the control room, their eyes gleamed with greed tinged with perplexity.
Because the eight of them had just attacked together, yet failed to breach the control room door.
"Strange. This door is just like the one at the entrance of the ruins, so why won't it open?" the elder in the solid red mask muttered, thoroughly baffled.
Although four people were missing, the Purple Mansion cultivator was still here, and the Purple Mansion cultivator was the key to opening the gate.
The others were equally puzzled.
The Divine Infants of the Sky-Overturning Plan Alliance had no intention of striking just yet either; after all, if there were so many good things outside, wouldn't the control room hold even better treasures?
"Don't you understand such a simple truth? It's because the final boss—me—hasn't made his entrance yet," Qi Yuan said lightly, emerging with his arm around Ning Tao, a smile in his eyes.
"I told you opening the last door was all thanks to me, but none of you believed it."
Hearing Qi Yuan's words, doubt flashed in the eyes of the elder in the solid red mask.
Could it really be him?
He stared at Qi Yuan, trying to see through whatever backing or trump card the man had, but... Qi Yuan appeared utterly ordinary.
Could it be he had encountered some lucky chance that happened to unlock these doors?
Chapter 361